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Interesting. The ads and somewhat resource intensive software (any piece requires loading a ton of other components) turn me off, but I like their wide ranging support. Their PowerDirector 12 is the only editing and authoring program I'm aware of to support both mkv and subtitle editing. But it still didn't support hi10p AFAIK.

Now with HEVC support, I wonder if h.264 support has improved. h.265 higher end profiles specifiy 10-bit support and I assume Cyberlink also support 10-bit decoding for h.265. But I wonder about h.264. Do they support hi10p? Aside from color depth, what about color/chroma space i.e. YUV 4:2:2 and 4:4:4? I also wonder if subtitle support has also improved, or better yet, if they're using opensource libraries for handling it.

It would also be interesting if you could do LAN streaming, where you'd use a PC to transcode and stream files to devices that can't play them natively or don't have the power.Reply

Hey everyone. I've just played back a 4k video downloaded from YouTube and it played flawlessly on Windows Media Player (Windows 8.1) and an Ivybridge CPU, better than VLC where the video looked jerky and some frames were dropped. I was amazed and impressed. Video was Costa Rica 4k. Reply

Yes, when there is no other feature that you can come up with then use cloud as an excuse to sell your product, even winzip has that "cloud" feature. I don't know why you wankers promote these stupid products when there are perfectly free alternatives available.Reply

What I don't understand is why anyone would want all that crap. Previews, menus, BDLive, games and all that just interfere with the whole process of trying to enjoy a movie. Extract the videos you want to your container of choice and play through any free player (XBMC, VLC, MPC, etc.). It's like Netflix, but perfect quality.Reply

The playback quality of VLC compared to Powerdvd is pretty poor. Its easy to test so have a look yourself. While VLC is brilliant in that it plays anything you throw at it the playback quality of video content is not on a par with PowerDVD.Reply

All I want from the Windows version is a good DVD/Blu Ray player that works 100% reliably and gets out of the way.

From the mobile versions I want something that can (in the case of Windows RT) playback at least DVDs if not also Blu Rays, and MPEG2 from my Tivo...the "cloud" stuff and whatever is utterly meaningless to me.Reply

Depends on what resolution you are looking at. Pretty sure a Sandy Bridge i3 is good enough for 1080p24. Still trying to collect test streams for various resolutions and frame rates to get a good idea. HEVC is still in its infancy, though -- we are not sure yet what the encoding parameters that will be used to create the media files will be.Reply

From my own tests since x265 came out in September HEVC still has a long way to go compared to x264 encoder, but in only 7 months months has improved massively in development. The next branch will deal with quality so lets see how long till HEVC stops to be only a nice marketing jargon.Reply

- The "standard version" only plays DVDs but costs almost as much as a standalone BluRay player with all the hardware (optical drive, SoC, motherboard, power supply, case, remote), software licenses, etc.Besides, isn't DVD playback free with windows nowadays?

- The "Pro version" plays blurays but doesn't support 3D and downmixes all original 7.1 content into 5.1 (probably spending CPU/energy resources into decoding a TrueHD/DTS-HD just to drop 2 channels and send a 5.1 LPCM instead).It costs almost the same as a full-fledged standalone BluRay player that will play 3D content and won't castrate the sound for people who have a 7.1 setup.

- The "Ultra Version" is more expensive than many standalone BluRay players that offer practically the same functionality.. except that it's just a piece of software.

So what's the pirated/purchased ratio on this? 1 Million to 1?Do people actually buy this?

HEVC support has been around for ages in free and open-source software. Why would any capable-of-using-google person would want to pay for this?Reply

This company has no shame. After forcing me to pay twice to continue having blu-ray support, I won't buy their products ever again. Also forced their customers to pay for windows 8 support eventhough it would work fine if it didn't self check and disable itself. (planned obsolescence, nothing more) Buy a blu-ray player to watch blu-rays. Don't use a computer. And shame on the companies that created the blu-ray format, that they didn't have the foresight to release a free blu-ray application when they released the format. Short-sighted stupidity killed the platform. I didn't experience any of these aggravations with the DVD standard.....Reply

Agreed, it's sad that it's easier and more cost effective to get a lifetime license for a program that removes copy protection schemes (specifically for Blu-Ray) then it its to try and have a "legitimate" software player.Reply

Microsoft charges for Bluray and DVD playback because they need to pay for the licensing. In Windows 7 very few people used the built-in codecs so they decided to try and save money and sell them for $9.99. $9.99 isn't so bad, I think it's pretty close to cost.Reply

What I mean to say is.. .you cannot enable the Stock Windows Media Player that comes with Windows 7 (any addition.. I have Ultimate) to play back BluRay... There is no Codec purchase option available from Microsoft.

You have to go 3rd party...at which point you might as well use a 3rd party player too.Reply

I hope you guys are following what I've typed.... I've presented it as clear as mud... Sorry.

My point was, whereas previously purchasing an Ultimate Edition of Windows gave you near endless play back capability of DVD content.... Microsoft washed its hands of BluRay and other advanced codecs. You have to go elsewhere... 3rd party... can't go stock... can't even go stock with options purchase... you have to go 3rd party.

And the only real affordable option they have is the Media Suite Ultimate for $150, which is 2 year old software missing the cutting edge features. Yes this company is hit with rampant piracy and with good reason, they just arent getting their product out there at a affordable price.

Look at what steam did to slow PC Piracy, They made it easy to buy software and made it very affordable. PC Piracy has droped 500% in the past 5 years. Cyberlink needs to look at what valve did and make thier whole suite affordable. $50 max per program, unless its the Power Director (i agree it's worth more). and maybe $199 for all of the latest and greatest Ultimate Suite.

But nah, they want $100 per, and the suite has 10 programs, so that's $1000 you'd have to spend to get the latest and greatest. Their equivalent to Office 365 subscription is only available on 1-2 products. They need to get real with the pricing is all i'm sayingReply

And dont forget, everyone else will be rolling out HEVC support in the coming months, and cyberlink will start including the feature in the standard version to remain competitive. Right now they are the first to do it, so they are charging $50 more "because they can". Reply

They Locked H.265 Support to only the ULTRA and LIVE Versions, which is retarded. If you buy the standard version for $50 it should come with H.265, what a greedy company. No wonder its one of the most pirated software in the world.

Whenever I try to activate it, the following error appears:You cannot upgrade to Cyberlink Power DVD 14 because you do not have Administrator privileges on this computer. Sign in to Windows as administrator and try again.

I have a copy of Power DVD 10 I bought about 2 years ago, it doesn't play more than half the blurays I've tried to play. For a $99.99 piece of software that's pathetic. Not only that they keep releasing new versions an discontinuing updates for older ones.

All I wanted was a software player than could play all the same movies any hardware player can and what I got was an overpriced, worthless piece of junk. I wouldn't buy anything from this company ever again.Reply

It would be great... if it worked. I subscribed a week ago and they have been unable to activate my subscription. Needed it for a presentation and the tech support takes forever to get back to you with a cut and pasted answer. Four replies later and they still don't seem to understand what I'm saying. Not sure if there's a language barrier, but good luck if you buy this software and need any help. The customer service and tech support are useless. They will give a refund if you give up on making it work, but if you want the software, it's a crap shoot. I would not recommend this software because of the terrible support. Reply